Ranji Trophy: Battle of domestic giants

For the 39-time Ranji Trophy champions Mumbai, who have already qualified for the knock out stage of the league, the seventh and the last round Super League tie against Delhi starting from Wednesday will just be a formality.

However, the same cannot be said of the hosts, who face a do-or-die situation. Delhi, led by stand-in skipper Shikhar Dhawan, failed to chase a low 136-run target set by Railways in their last game. They now have no option but to register an outright win against the defending champions to qualify for the knock out stage. In the points table, Delhi share third position with Gujarat (13), who will meet Tamil Nadu.

The contest cannot get hotter than this as Mumbai would be looking to regain the winning momentum after losing the first innings points to Tamil Nadu in the last league encounter, while Delhi eye an outright victory at the Feroz Shah Kotla ground.

In what could be a major boost for Delhi, Virat Kohli, who was on national duty, makes a comeback to the team. The swashbuckling batsman had scored back-to-back centuries in the first two Ranji Trophy encounters against Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Captain Mithun Manhas, who sat out of the previous encounter, will also be in the team.

On the eve of the match, Delhi coach and former Test cricketer Manoj Prabhakar said, “I don’t think the defeat in the last match will be of any consequence when the players get out in the field. We have a few important players like Virat Kohli coming back and that will definitely bolster the side.”

Mumbai coach Praveen Amre stressed on importance of regaining the winning momentum ahead of the knock out stage.

“Every match is important. For any team, win is important. We have to get back that winning momentum before we play in the quarterfinals,” the former India cricketer said.

However, Amre does not want to lose the opportunity of testing Mumbai’s young guns.

“Delhi is one of the best and toughest teams in domestic cricket. But we have rested some of the senior players for this game to try out the youngsters. I hope they grab the chance with both hands.”

Mumbai have decided to rest senior off-spinner Ramesh Powar, seamer Dhawal Kulkarni and all-rounder Abhishek Nayar for this match.

However, the side’s batting still bears a formidable look with domestic run-machines such as captain Wasim Jaffer, Ajinkya
Rahane and Rohit Sharma in the side.
“Jaffer and Rahane have been the backbone of Mumbai team. They have been scoring pretty consistently in Ranji Trophy and I believe it is time for national selectors to consider Rahane and call back Jaffer (in the Indian team),” Amre said.

Teams
Mumbai: Wasim Jaffer (C), Ajinkya Rahane, Sahil Kukreja, Omkar Gurav (wk), Iqbal Abdulla, Avishkar Salvi, Prashant Naik, Rohit Sharma, Ajit Agarkar, Praful Waghela, Suryakumar Yadav, Harmeet Singh, Moondeep Mangela, Santosh Shinde, Swapnil Salvi
Delhi: Mithun Manhas (C), Parvinder Awana, Aditya Jain, Rajat Bhatia, Puneet Bisht, Gaurav Chabra, Chetan Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Chetanya Nanda, Sumit Narwal, Pradeep Sangwan, Pawan Suyal, Mayank Tehlan, Vikas Mishra